


where the lovelight gleams

by aces



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: Christmas, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I thought about wrapping myself up in a big red bow, but that just seemed a bit too cheesy.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	where the lovelight gleams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kindkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindkit/gifts).



Stepping out of the TARDIS console room, humming to himself, the Doctor happened to glance down at the floor. He paused, arrested by what he saw there. A bright red painted arrow, pointing down one of the branching corridors. He frowned. He was quite sure that had not been there a few hours ago when he’d entered the console room.

“Curious,” he said to himself and dutifully followed the arrow. After all, who was he to argue with curiosity?

At the next junction, there was a folded scrap of paper. “Go to the left,” it said. It looked as if it had been typed on a typewriter.

The Doctor frowned again. “Taking an awful lot on trust, aren’t you?” he said to the paper. Not being sentient, the paper did not reply, but the Doctor shoved it absently in his pocket and did as directed.

He had three choices around the next curve—technically four, if he wanted to turn around, but he wouldn’t miss this for the world now—and each had a folded scrap of paper. There was a fourth piece sitting directly at his feet. He looked down at it, the expression on his face suggesting he half-expected the paper to start dancing or spontaneously folding itself into an origami frog. When it did neither, he picked it up.

“Look behind door #3,” the note said.

The Doctor looked down each of the three corridors ahead of him. “Yes, but which one’s door number 3?” he asked. Not sentient either, this note also didn’t reply. He chose the piece of paper sitting in the right-hand corridor.

“Good guess,” said the note, and the Doctor—despite himself—grinned and continued walking.

The corridor opened up into a wide, circular white room, a large and comfortable-looking white sofa in the center of it, and an array of enticing corridors branching off from it. Anji was lounging there, reading a novel. Not one of her economics journals, the Doctor was surprised to note, but an actual novel. She glanced up at him and set the book aside.

“Are you the gatekeeper?” the Doctor inquired.

Anji frowned. “Sorry?”

“You know, the gatekeeper,” said the Doctor. “Do I have to answer your three riddles before I can pass?”

She looked a little indignant. “Aren’t those gatekeepers in the stories always old crones?”

The Doctor shrugged. “You’re fit for a modern age,” he consoled her.

Anji rolled her eyes. “Lucky you, then,” she said, “I don’t have any riddles for you. I’m just supposed to tell you to go that way.” She pointed down a corridor behind her and to her left.

The Doctor considered her for a moment before moving on. “Do you know why he’s doing this?”

Anji threw a tolerantly affectionate glance over her shoulder before picking up her novel again. “Do you know why he does anything he does?”

“Whim and an excess of imagination?”

“Could be.” Anji curled up comfortably, and the Doctor moved on. “Then again, that could be true for both of you,” she added in a low, amused voice.

“Heard that,” the Doctor called over his shoulder.

“You were supposed to,” Anji called back, her voice as sweet as honey, and the Doctor shook his head, but he was smiling again.

The next corridor was different. The roundelled walls gave way to red brick—still with regular circular indentations in the brick—and there was a candle flickering in the middle of the floor. The Doctor picked up the candle and followed the scent of tea that had been brewing a bit longer than it should have and a flickering glow of more light from a doorway down the hall.

“Oh, I say.” The Doctor didn’t remember this space, wasn’t sure he’d ever explored this far before in this direction since re-acquiring his TARDIS. It was a large and airy living room, lit by candlelight, one wall made of windows that showed a snowy, star-filled evening outside, a fireplace against another wall, fire crackling inside it. The tea set sat on a small round table off to one side of a huge sofa angled to face both the fire and the view outdoors. Fitz was asleep on the sofa. And there was a Christmas tree by the windows, softly glowing. With electric lights, the Doctor noted; Fitz, if nothing else, had a strong sense of self-preservation. Usually, at least.

The Doctor smiled. He set down his candle, poured himself a cup of tea with cream and sugar, nibbled on one of the chocolate biscuits sitting on the plate next to the tea things. He sat down next to his friend and watched him sleep for a little while and then, finishing his tea and setting his cup back down on the table, slipped in between Fitz and the back of the remarkably deep couch.

The Doctor decided, slipping his arms around his friend, that he rather liked this room. “Mmm,” Fitz murmured in surprise, waking up a little. The Doctor squeezed a little more tightly. “Am I supposed to be Father Christmas?” he asked in Fitz’s ear, and Fitz instantly relaxed, smiling a little. He hadn’t quite managed to open his eyes yet.

“I thought about wrapping myself up in a big red bow,” Fitz’s voice was so quiet even the Doctor had to strain to hear him. “But that seemed a bit too cheesy.”

The Doctor’s laugh was low, intimate. Fitz leaned back against him a little more. “I thought you’d be here hours ago,” Fitz complained, though his tone was half-hearted about the whole thing. “I was all set to be leaning against the fireplace mantel, all smooth seduction willing you to follow my every whim.”

“That’s alright,” the Doctor consoled him. “It’s much easier to be seductive lying down, don’t you think?”

Fitz snorted. “Bang goes your Christmas present,” he said.

“You realize we are in a time and space machine currently residing in the time vortex,” the Doctor smiled, shaking his head at his friend’s folly. “That time as you understand it is essentially meaningless here and therefore the celebration of such holidays is a little redundant?”

“All the more reason for a bit of festivity then,” was Fitz’s only reply, and the Doctor kissed the back of his head.

“Happy Christmas, Fitz,” said the Doctor, and Fitz’s hand slipped neatly into his.

“Happy Christmas, Doctor,” Fitz replied, nearly asleep once more.

Yes, the Doctor decided, tucked in with his best friend and watching from his narrow vantage point the snow fall behind the window and the fire crackle in the fireplace, he definitely liked this room in the TARDIS.


End file.
